Apr 13, 2014; Newark, NJ, USA; The New Jersey Devils tap their sticks for New Jersey Devils goalie
Martin Brodeur(30) after their 3-2 win over the Boston Bruins at Prudential Center. Mandatory Credit: Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports
Yesterday, Martin Brodeur announced his retirement from the NHL. His twenty-two year career proved he was one of the rarest of individuals. He was a transcendental player. Not many players can claim that they were so good, the league changed their rules to limit their excellence. (They might as well call the trapezoid the ‘Martybars’.)No matter what records he holds, he’ll always be regarded as one of the finest stick-handling goalies in NHL history.
Pucks and Pitchforks
While he was never a member of the Boston Bruins, he was one of those players that earned the universal respect of both fans and fellow players.
“First of all, he’s a tremendous ambassador of the game. Not only are the statistics there, but the team sport that he’s in and the awards he has won, you have to look at how significant he was. Not to look at how significant he was would be underestimating and underappreciating what he’s done. I really can’t explain. He’s had such a high value for us.” Devils GM Lou Lamoriello on Martin Brodeur
He spent twenty years as a member of the New Jersey Devils organization. The Devils selected him in the first round of the 1990 NHL Entry Draft. By 1993, he was their starting goaltender, and as his career blossomed he morphed into the face of the franchise.(The position Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara find themselves in with the Boston Bruins.) In 1995, his goaltending got New Jersey to the their first of five Stanley Cup finals appearances. He went on to win three Stanley Cups with New Jersey (1995, 2000,2003). He earned the coveted Vezina Trophy four times as the league’s best goaltender.
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Brodeur will be heading back to the Devils in some management capacity in the future. We got a glimpse of the future manager as he was allowed to draft his son Anthony for the Devils’ organization in 2013. That same day, the Devils acquired Cory Schneider to be the heir-apparent to the elder Brodeur. At the end of last season, he ended up in free agency and got picked up by the St. Louis Blues as an emergency goaltender.
In his brief stint with the Blues as a player, Brodeur went 3-3 with a 2.87 goals-against average, and a .899 save percentage. In his final game as a NHL player, he proved he still had the chops by making sixteen saves in a 3-0 shutout against the Colorado Avalanche. That was his one hundred and twenty-fifth career shutout. He can honestly say he went out on a high note. He will now be an assistant GM for the Blues organization, and his lifetime of goaltending experience will certainly be used to good effect in St. Louis.
There are some records that Brodeur holds that may never be eclipsed. He’s the all-time leader in goals with 691. He’s played more games than any other goalie in the NHL (1,266). He’s the leader in saves with an astonishing 28,928. He has two Olympic gold medals playing for Team Canada. He’s also one of those rare birds to have scored three goals while in the crease. One of them was the only game-winning goal put in by a goaltender in NHL history.
So, a big *stick tap* to one of the legends of the game. It’s not a question of if he’ll be inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame. It’s simply just a question of when.